The Shadow of Me
by Rebecca Steven Taylor
Summary: When Aziraphale and Crowley swap bodies, they leave a trace of each other behind - just enough of a trace to discover how they feel - but time is running out


Crowley – Crowley as Aziraphale – walks into St James Park and looks around. He tries to keep his hands still, clasping them behind his back, just like Aziraphale. He tries to be nice too, smiling at random strangers, but that isn't working. He's worried that he's not quite convincing enough. He's not soft enough.

'Get this right,' he murmurs. 'Get this right, he's depending on you.'

They would expect them to come here. Aziraphale and Crowley had always met here. Sunshine and ducks and peace. Once Aziraphale, worried for some reason, had looked around and wondered if this was a good idea, to meet so openly in a park where anyone could see them.

'_Nah, angel, look around. Place is packed full of spies clandestinely meeting each other, it's like a John le Carre novel multiplied by a thousand. It's kind of an accepted safe space for everyone to meet the other side to get things sorted out.'_

'_Yes, but we were meeting here before that happened. Before it was even built. In fact, I wonder if we started it? By the way, talking of le Carre…'_

Just behave as they are expecting you – him – to behave and this will all work out.

OoOoOoO

Crowley looked into the mirror and saw the face he loved most in all of eternity looking back at him. The face yesterday he thought had burned and gone and left him behind. The face he thought he'd never see again. The face he searched for, every day wherever he was. The only face he ever wanted to see, far more than his own. His hands shook as he straightened the tie.

'Not like that,' Aziraphale said, and Crowley's own hands reached round his neck to tug on the bowtie. 'You'll make a mess of it.'

'Well, I'm not used to ties, am I?'

'Just don't pull too hard on it and you'll be fine.'

'Yeah, that's what he said…sorry, sorry, I know! No dirty jokes in your voice.' Crowley said, holding up in his hands in surrender. He looked round at Aziraphale, who looked very uncomfortable. Blimey, Crowley thought, those jeans really are tight. Mind you, I look good in them.

'You have to slouch a little, Aziraphale. Kind of let things hang loose. Swing from the hips.'

Aziraphale walked round a little, looking insanely ridiculous as he tried to copy Crowley's walk.

'Stop laughing, will you? It's not helping.'

OoOoOo

There he is, walking across the grass, hands in pockets. Aziraphale hasn't quite got the swagger, but he's got a certain something now. He spots Crowley and raises his hand in the air and comes over, trying not to hurry. Crowley wouldn't run. But then Crowley wouldn't grin like that either.

'My dear,' Aziraphale says, and it is odd to hear that in his own voice. It must show in Crowley's face, because Aziraphale says 'Angel' and Crowley is struck still. Is that what it sounds like? The word isn't just a label, like he meant it, like it was supposed to sound, like "army human" does. It's full of love and yearning and tenderness. Has it been there, Crowley thought, in my words to him, all this time?

OoOoOoOo

'I suppose,' Aziraphale said,' you should go to the bookshop. I would. Just to check for damage and so on.'

'Yes. The bookshop.'

Crowley didn't want to go to the bookshop. He didn't want those memories. His angel was back now, he didn't want to remember. He hadn't told Aziraphale much beyond the basic facts.

'It might be alright,' Aziraphale said, babbling as he walked round the room. 'The M25 is back, the kraken is gone, Adam is resetting reality. The bookshop might be fine.'

The bookshop. Crowley leaned against the desk, unable to stand upright. _Loss. Pain. Agony. Not like this since the fall. A great empty chasm, just gone, everything that meant anything to him, anything that mattered in the universe, the only reason he was fighting the apocalypse burned and he hadn't been there, he'd been stupidly angry and stormed away and left Aziraphale to die alone and it was his fault, his fault, his fault…_

'No!' Aziraphale snapped in his own voice, and Crowley looked up to see his own face staring back at him, white and angry. Aziraphale stepped forward and took Crowley's hand in his own. 'It wasn't your fault, it was my own stupid fault.'

'You could hear what I was thinking?' Crowley said apprehensively. What else had he let slip?

'Not really. Just an impression. You were screaming in there, dear, and I'm in your body. I think there's a trace of you left in here – a shadow of you, and it heard you.'

'Oh,' Crowley said, and searched around inside him for a shadow of Aziraphale. Was it there? Just a touch of that goodness that defied Heaven and Hell to save the humans? A trace of courage? Even just the urge to pick up a book? He couldn't feel it.

'My dear – I had no idea I hurt you so much. I had no idea…I didn't even know you were talking about me when I found you again. I didn't know…'

'S'fine,' Crowley said, shrugging, disarranging the unfamiliar coat. _I can't bear it if you find out now, just before we might lose each other._

'But you cried for me. I heard you – I never thought it could be for me? For me?'

'Have another listen to that shadow of me you've got in there, angel.'

Aziraphale looked away, concentrating and then Crowley saw him find it. _A glowing jewel in the darkness. Love. Love for Aziraphale. And oh, the pain, and oh, the joy of it all._ He turned back to Crowley, determined.

'I'm here,' Aziraphale said, still holding onto his hand and looking intently into his face. 'I may have discorporated but I got to Heaven and I came straight back to you. I will always do that, I swear.'

'You can't promise that,' Crowley said. _Promise me_

'Excuse me, I jumped out of Heaven back down to Earth and possessed a body and did all kinds of impossible things to get back to you, so I think I can promise that.'

Aziraphale seemed quite peeved Crowley could doubt him. He stepped a bit closer.

'And while I'm here, I should apologise…'

'Don't. Not now. We have to concentrate right now.'

OoOoOoOoOo

'Ice cream?' Aziraphale asks, and they walk over to the ice-cream stand. Crowley is still doing it, Aziraphale noticed, even in his body, circling Aziraphale, keeping an eye out. 'Anything?' he says in a low voice.

'Perhaps,' Crowley says, looking at the tourist family down by the river. They don't look quite right. They shimmer slightly in the air if you look too closely at them. 'Are you ready?.'

'No. But if not now, when?' Aziraphale says, as they reach the river, and walk past the MI5 agent concocting a story with his Russian counterpart. 'I think it's best we get this done now, before they get suspicious. The quicker the better. If this is to work they cannot suspect we know. We must act oblivious'

'Oblivious. Fine. Right. I can manage that. Don't react, don't run, don't fight. Don't act afraid.' _Fear is all I can feel, bitter in my throat. Fear and a desire to grab you now and run away to the end of time. But they'd catch us. Sooner or later, they'd catch us, and all our clever tricks won't work if they have time to think about this._

'I know. I can do this. We both can.'

OoOoOoOoO

Aziraphale hands shook as he straightened Crowley's coat. Crowley put his hand over them to still then, that was all. Absolutely not for the comfort of the touch. Didn't want him rumpling the jacket, still in tip top condition.

'Don't be afraid, angel,' he said softly. 'I'll keep you safe.'

'You think I'm worried about me?' Aziraphale said, looking at Crowley sharply. 'Oh, for…there's a shadow of me inside you right now, Crowley, please look at it.'

'I did, but ….'

Crowley suddenly gasped. It had been there all the time. He hadn't seen because he didn't know, he couldn't imagine it, it was impossible. It was love, love from Aziraphale for him. _Years and years of it, stretching back millennia, all the way back. Hidden and ignored and denied but it had burned through all defences in a church in 1941 and now it blazed as bright as any star Crowley had ever made. And running through it a ribbon of fear. They'll destroy you if they catch us. Your lot don't send rude notes. I cannot put the cause of your own destruction in your hands. One minute I am handing you a suicide pill and trying to memorise your face in case I never see you again and the next you want us to run off together? Too fast, I have to go away and hurt, curl up on the floor and sob that I might never see you again and never tell you, I can't let that happen to you, I won't, can't ever let Heaven know, what will Hell do to you? Flashes of love, love all around and my walls crumble and can you feel my love and what will they do if they can see it too? Heaven wants me to fight you, Gabriel used your name and they suspect and if they see you with me, if they see how much I care they'll destroy you, I have to try to get God to stop this and I have to keep you away from me and keep you safe, keep you safe, keep you safe and you are walking away from me and I don't think I will ever see you again and I need to, I need to, but I need you safe more, I need you protected even if you hate me but oh your hate kills me. Take my hand, take my hand, we saved the world because you stopped time for me, you precious, wonderful being, more precious than Her, more precious than me, sit by me and take my hand. You are everything, you are the world, and the sun and the stars and I have longed for you so long and kept away from you and hurt you to keep you alive and every second away from you tore me to shreds and every second with you was life itself and I will die to keep you safe, Crowley. I will die for love of you._

Crowley staggered back against the door and looked up to see tears on his mirror image. His face, full of love, not his love, but Aziraphale's love.

'I had no idea…' he whispered. He felt tears on his cheek and an ache inside, and a need, so so strong, a need to hold the other tight and never let go.

'Yes. Well. Under the circumstances it was best you didn't.' Aziraphale said, so primly in Crowley's own voice. 'But I need you to understand that there is no point in me surviving if you don't, so you must be careful, my dearest. Don't be reckless.'

'No, no, I won't…' Crowley said, still shaking. All that love, for him? All those years protecting him and he never knew? And he thought Aziraphale didn't care, he had thought that he, Crowley, didn't deserve to be cared for and instead Aziraphale – his angel – thought of him as the most precious thing in the universe.

'You know I…'

'Later, my dearest,' Aziraphale said, his face pinched up like he did when he was trying not to weep. Crowley understood that expression now he could see it made with his own muscles. He'd last seen Aziraphale look like that as he handed over the holy water and oh, how he wished he had explained, properly then, instead of trying to keep the angel in blissful ignorance. 'When today is over, we will go to the Ritz and we will talk about everything.'

'Promise?' Crowley said, still shaking, weakly leaning against the door.

'I promise.' Aziraphale told him. 'Now, let's get this over with, shall we?'

Crowley turned to open the door, and paused, just for a second. _Let me say it._ But no, he was right. Afterwards.

OoOoOoO

As Aziraphale asks for the icecream, Crowley looks around. A grounds maintenance team in brown overalls are coming into the park to set up deck chairs, and he recognised two of them. Uriel and Sandalphon. He carefully looks away, trying to still his hands, trying to stop his heart beating out of his chest. This was it then. This was the moment. _Act normal. Do what they expect._

'How's the car?' Crowley asks, very carefully.

'Not a scratch on it. How's the bookshop?' Aziraphale says, turning round.

'Not a smudge. Not a book burned. Everything is back where it was.' Crowley says, circling round, looking after the angels, innocently – and rather incompetently – setting up deckchairs.

_There we go. Everything is as it should be. We'll be back together, in our car and in our bookshop. There's hope, please see there is hope. Don't give up. Please. Please._

'Have your people been in touch yet?'

Aziraphale hands over the ice cream and Crowley stares at it. He didn't want this. He wants to kiss Aziraphale and pour out every iota of his love for him into it. He wants Aziraphale to kiss him back, and hold him, and say everything he had kept locked up. But they can't. They can't even hint at it. Not a glance, not a whisper, not a brush of hands, nothing. If they do, the agents of Heaven and Hell would know and the act would be shattered and they would lose it all.

'Yours?'

'Nothing'

_I love you I love you I love you please know that. If this is the last time…_

There was Hastur, he was sure. And carrying a crowbar – almost time then. This was going to hurt. Uriel and Sandalphon were beginning to come over. Let them. Let Hastur and Uriel and all the others believe they didn't suspect a thing. This could be their last moments together and they had to act like it wasn't happening at all. It could all be over in moments and they could only say goodbye with a glance.

'Do you understand what happened yesterday?'

_Yes, yes, keep the conversation going, I can see them coming, they'll take me first._

'Well, I understand some of it, but some of it, well, it's just a bit too…'

'INEFFABLE'

And oh, it's Death. Someone will die. Someone will lose. _Don't be him, please. Let it be me, if it must be. _And Crowley lets Uriel place a hand silently over his mouth and tear him away from Aziraphale's side.

One last moment. They watch each other as they are torn apart. They knew it was coming, counted down the seconds and yet it feels so real, as if they will never see each other, no more Ritz, no more arguments, no more time, no more them. Perhaps they'll be together again in hours. Or perhaps all they will have left of each other is a shadow inside themselves.


End file.
